students left behind - 2,500 Texans drop out each week

Every four minutes a student drops out of a Texas public school, according to a new report from the Intercultural Development Research Association. That means that, across the state, one-third of the students who began high school in fall 2004 left without a diploma before the end of the 2008 school year.

The San Antonio-based IDRA has tracked school dropout rates for more than 20 years and says this year's numbers are no better than when the organization released its first report in 1986.

In Bexar County, where the 40 percent attrition rate is higher than the state figures, 10,363 students in the Class of 2008 left school without a diploma. The vast majority were minorities.

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